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Witnesses for Congressional hearing on autism announced

28 Nov

Thursday the US House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform will hold a hearing on autism: 1 in 88 Children: A Look Into the Federal Response to Rising Rates of Autism.

The witness list has been made public on the committee’s website:

Alan Guttmacher, M.D.
Director, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
National Institutes of Health

Coleen Boyle, Ph.D.
Director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mr. Bob Wright
Co-Founder
Autism Speaks

Mr. Scott Badesch
President
Autism Society

Mr. Mark Blaxill
Board Members
SafeMinds

Mr. Bradley McGarry
Coordinator of the Asperger Initiative at Mercyhurst
Mercyhurst University

Mr. Michael John Carley
Executive Director
Global & Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership

Mr. Ari Ne’eman
President
Autistic Self Advocacy Network

Action Alert: Call today to support The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities!

27 Nov

The action alert below is from The Arc:

Action Alert: Call today to support The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities!
Take Action!

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is being brought to the U.S. Senate floor this week. We are nearing a vote, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) indicated he will bring the treaty up to begin debate during Executive Session within the next few days.  The Arc has been working with numerous other disability advocacy groups to garner support for ratifying the treaty, which will promote, protect, and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities.  This vote is the culmination of months of advocacy work by advocates like you and we need your help to ensure ratification.

It is important for you to contact your Senators today and let them know that you support CRPD. We need every U.S. Senator to be contacted and to know that the disability community is leading the charge for U.S. ratification of this international disability treaty. Our voice matters.

Get your friends, family, and work colleagues to make calls and use social media today to show support! Click on the “take action” link at the top of the page to get started.

You can find phone and email contact information for your Senators here, and Twitter IDs for your Senators here (Tweet using #CRPD #UNCRPD).

Tell your Senators:

I am a person with a disability (I am a family member/friend/supporter of a person with a disability) and I want to see the Senator vote in support of the CRPD this year!

The CRPD will not cost the Federal Government any additional funds.

The CRPD has been reviewed by both Republican and Democratic Attorneys General and by past Counsel to Presidents.  They confirm that it does not threaten the sovereignty of the U.S. nor does it require any new legislation to comply with the treaty. 

This treaty is good for American business and for the world.  It will allow us to bring our knowledge of making a society accessible to the whole world.

MOST IMPORTANTLY – This treaty is very important to the U.S. disability community! Following U.S. ratification of the treaty, U.S. leadership will help raise accessibility around the world, directly helping Americans with disabilities who live, work, or travel abroad.  

Sample Tweet : @(SenatorID) Vote to support the #CRPD #UNCRPD!  This is a #disability issue and we say vote YES!

Sample Twitpic: https://twitter.com/USICD/status/259376999901044736/photo/1

—
By Matt Carey

A rare opportunity: a congressional autism hearing

23 Nov

A hearing is scheduled for next week by the a committee of the U.S. House of representatives: the Committee on Oversight & Government Refiorm. The Committee’s hearing is entitled:

1 in 88 Children: A Look Into the Federal Response to Rising Rates of Autism

This gives a rare opportunity to contact a member of congress when autism is on the agenda. There are many ways to do so. Consider taking the time to let people known what you think is important.

The Committee has a webpage and the Minority party (currently the Democrats) maintain a separate page. Neither site has an electronic method for feedback that I can see.

However, feedback is possible via phone and fax: Phone: (202) 225-5074 Fax: (202) 225-3974.

I have set up a webpage where you can fax the committee.

Comments can be left on the committee main  Facebook page
Minority party (Democrats) Facebook page

The committee webpage lists @darellissa (the chairman) as their Twitter handle.

In addition, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network has a Facebook event and will be gathering a group to attend the hearing.

At A Diary of a Mom, it has been suggested that one cont acre the Chair, Darrell Issa directly through his website.

The committee members are listed here and one should feel free to contact them, especially if you are in their district.

If you are able to attend, the hearing is Nov. 29 2:00 pm in 2154 Rayburn House Office Building.

To be clear, this is a committee hearing from a lame duck congress. No legislation is being considered at present. There will be some science, much politics and, I expect, more than a little theater (although I admit where politics ends and theater begins is not well defined).

Word is that the hearing will include government and non government members in two panels.

Alan Guttmacher, NIH NICHD
Coleen Boyle, CDC

And
Bob Wright, Autism Speaks
Scott Badesch, Autism Society
Mark Blaxill, Safe Minds
Rebecca Landa, Center for Autism and Related Disorders Kennedy Krieger Institute

An open letter to the Committee on Oversight & Government Reform

23 Nov

Dear Committee on Oversight & Government Reform,

I write to you in regards to your upcoming autism hearing. Much has happened in the decade since the Committee last met on autism.

“1 in 88 Children: A Look Into the Federal Response to Rising Rates of Autism”

We need to shift from seeing autism as primarily a discussion of children to being focused on the entire population. We need to shift from being primarily focused on viewing autism as primarily an epidemiological topic to focusing on improving the lives of our citizens. There are over three million American autistics. Improving the lives of autistics should be a top priority.

Consider this simple paragraph, the description of the hearing:

“The hearing will address the federal response to the recent rise in Autism Spectrum Disorders diagnoses, as well as the allocation of government resources for ASD. The hearing will also review research and treatment options for those diagnosed with ASDs.”

Research and treatment options are after allocation of government resources for ASD, as though these are an afterthought.

Now, consider this simple rewrite:-

“The hearing will address the federal response to the recent rise in Autism Spectrum Disorders diagnoses, as well as research and treatment options for those diagnosed with ASDs. The hearing will also review the allocation of government resources for ASD.”

This sends the message that research and treatment are high enough priorities to include in a discussion of allocation of resources.

Much has been learned since the Committee last met to discuss autism. We know that much of the rise in autism prevalence estimates is due to social factors including changes in how autism is recognized. And we know we aren’t finished quantifying social factors involved in the increase. The question of whether the true incidence of autism is really rising remains open. But there is not a question of whether autistics in previous generations were missed. The question is how many were missed. Further, we know that the characteristics of the autism population are much different than previously thought. The recent CDC estimate of 1 in 88 included the result that the majority identified did not have intellectual disability.

The autism population is larger and a broader spectrum than thought even the short time ago when Pub. Law No. 109-416 (the CAA) was enacted. The government response needs to be broader in response. Greater resources are needed to adequately address the role the government is taking in autism.

An example of an opportunity this new understanding presents is in employment. A study from the UK showed that not only is the adult prevalence about 1%, but that many of these adults are living alone and are un- or under-employed. Another way to look at that is that a large fraction of the un- and under-employed are likely autistic. With an understanding of what supports are needed in the workplace and how to effectively transition from education to employment, we could make a big impact on unemployment.

Appropriate education for autistics can be more expensive than education for non-autistic students. As more children are correctly diagnosed and appropriately served, special education costs rise. The federal government has never lived up to its commitment to fund 40% of special education costs. President Obama promised to make good on this promise while campaigning four years ago. We are still waiting.

I note that the witnesses for this hearing do not include someone from the department of education nor anyone with a primary focus on education.

Autistic children become autistic adults. Today’s autistic adults are largely undiagnosed and unstudied. This is true for those adults with Asperger syndrome as well as those with intellectual disability. We don’t know what supports in living condition, tertiary education or working conditions are most appropriate for autistics. We know there are co-occurring conditions such as epilepsy and intellectual disability with autism, but we don’t know what sort of medical conditions might be more common or have early onset in adult and aging autistics. The title of a study out today drives this home: “Into the unknown: aging with autism spectrum disorders.” We just don’t know the specifics of this population while they age.

The needs of autistics with multiple disabilities are as high as ever.  Often the autism spectrum is presented as having one dimension, with the level of intellectual disability defining one’s place on the spectrum. This approach is far too simplistic and ignores the great variation in other measures. For example, just within the population with autism and intellectual disability there is great variation of the unique needs and strengths.  Unfortunately all too often schools lump autistic children into categories based on intellectual ability rather than needs. We are not giving our educators and our students the tools they need.

“Success” in autism treatment and education is frequently defined as achieving some level of non-autisticness. Of becoming “indistinguishable from peers”. However, what may be considered a small advance by this measure could be huge for an autistic with intellectual disability.  About 5% of autistics are non verbal and a larger fraction are non conversational. A recent review found fewer than 200 examples in the published literature of non-verbal autistics learning to speak past age five. And yet the same team has shown that it is possible to teach verbal communication to older autistics. Since the last autism hearing by the Committee advances in portable technology have led to a boom in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Giving a non verbal or minimally verbal individual a more effective means of communication may be small by some measures of success but can be life changing for the individual. To paraphrase on autistic writer: self-advocacy begins with “no”. A single word, spoken or presented through AAC, is a giant leap for some.

The federal response to autism includes congress. 2011 was a year where congress was accused many times of “kicking the can down the road”. Such was the case with autism. Pub. Law No. 109-416 was reenacted at the last minute and for a short time. I am grateful that it was reenacted but autism efforts are long term. Even organizations which criticize the government’s efforts as accomplishing too little over the short term, organizations which promote the idea that answers to tough autism are straightforward, even they are calling for a permanent federal autism infrastructure. Congress needs to accept a long term commitment.

Autism presents a much more broad and long-term topic than the Committee attempted to address a decade ago. It is a more broad and long-term topic than many try to present today. The federal response to autism has been significant and serious but it needs to expand to address the real and serious needs of the autism communities.

Respectfully submitted,

Matthew J. Carey, Ph.D.
San Jose, California

Autism Hearing? Let yourself be heard

21 Nov

It has been reported that a hearing of the Committee On Oversight & Government Reform will held on autism on November 29th:

The panel, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (D-Calif.), has invited witnesses from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as Autism Speaks and other advocacy groups.

Autism Speaks appears to be confirming this meeting is being set up.

There hasn’t been such a hearing in many years (think a decade). The previous hearings were held by Congressman Dan Burton, who was a major proponent of the idea that vaccines were causing an epidemic of autism. Congressman Burton is retiring, and the focus of the meeting is likely not going to be as strongly vaccine oriented in the past, but that will likely be a discussion point. From what I’ve been able to gather, so far the meeting will include no Autistic representatives nor Autistic-run organizations.

Should the meeting happen (it isn’t on the calendar for the Committee yet), wouldn’t you like the opportunity to have your views heard? One can fax the Committee, but they are not under an obligation to include public comments. I say this not to dissuade you from sending a comment, but, instead, to encourage you to ask strongly that your comments be included.

I have set up a website which will allow you to easily send a fax to the committee. Follow this link and you will have a form which you can fill out and send your message. The form is very basic (here is a screenshot). The message you send will be emailed to you and emailed to a fax server which will send it to the committee’s fax number. (alternatively, you can fax them directly at (202) 225-3974).

In my opinion, U.S. Autism policy affects communities the whole world over. As such, I would encourage international readers of Left Brain/Right Brain to submit comments as well. Consider making it clear that you are from outside the U.S..

Privacy issues: the site sends two emails. One to the email address you give and the other to a server which will send the faxes. I have access to the logs on that server and, for some time, I can read the faxes sent. But I don’t.

You are free to chose your talking points. Here are some of mine:

1) We need focus on improving the quality of life of Autistics
2) While not all Autistics can self-advocate, if we are going to have autism organizations represented, we need to have Autistic-run organizations represented.
3) Autism is a very broad spectrum, all with challenges of some sort. The government’s response needs to be broad (read-larger than it is now) in order to encompass all the needs of these communities.
4) The vaccine-epidemic hypothesis has been very damaging to the autism communities. Please don’t allow this meeting to be a way around the science in order to keep that idea alive.
5) There are faux therapies in common use for autism. Many are harmless. Some are dangerous and based on incredibly poor science. We need to get accurate information out about these practices.

The fax is very basic. Here is a copy of one I sent earlier this week. I redacted my phone number and email address, but those will be included in the fax you send (note that those are voluntary fields. In other words, you can leave the phone number and city/state boxes blank).

Again, take a moment or take longer and put together a comment for the Committee. Follow this link and fill out the form and send a fax.

Thank Mitsubishi for supporting an Autism Campus Inclusion Leadership Program

19 Jun

In February I posted an email from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network describing their program for this summer:

ASAN Invites Autistic College Students to Autism Campus Inclusion Leadership Training

That program was supported by the Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF). If you feel grateful for their support of this program, you can contact some of the executives of the Foundation.

Katsuya Takamiya, President and CEO:
http://tinyurl.com/786gdcg

Kevin R. Webb, Director, MEAF:

Mitsubishi Electric Public Relations:

I can’t take credit for finding those links. That credit goes to the “Canary Party”. Never heard of them? Well, they are an offshoot of groups like SafeMinds and others. The sort who are behind the blog, Age of Autism.

No, they didn’t collect those links in order to thank the Foundation for their efforts. They wanted their membership to complain. They have a webpage (Mitsubishi Funds Group that Opposes Preventing or Curing Autism). Their discussion is rather long, but the main points are copied below. (The original has formatting problems which they don’t seem to want to fix.)

Despite the many worthwhile autism charities desperately in need of funding, Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation (MEAF) has chosen to fund one that:
1) opposes all efforts to cure or prevent autism, denies an increase in autism prevalence and now seeks to promote this form of “activism” among college students nationwide.
2) blatantly violates MEAF’s own stated guideline: “We do not fund organizations or programs connected with a controversial social or political issue.” MEAF is funding a “neurodiversity” initiative by ASAN (Autism Self Advocacy Network) – highy controversial in the autism community. According to ASAN, “The training is meant to prepare students to engage in self-advocacy and pro-neurodiversity activism on their college campuses.”
3) promotes “self-diagnosis” of autism, causing students who may have the disorder to not qualify for college disability support services and national testing service accommodations, thus diminishing, not “enhancing” chances for academic success and future employment. “Self-diagnosis” (without medical confirmation) of any disability, disease or disorder is an irresponsible practice and should not receive corporate funding.
4) does not promote “full inclusion of people with disabilities alongside their peers without disabilities,” as called for in Mitsubishi guidelines, but promotes segregation of people with disabilities in extracurricular activities.

Yes, the “canary party”, a group devoted to promoting the failed “mercury in vaccines caused an autism epidemic” idea is claiming that ASAN is “highly controversial”. A group spreading fear of vaccines is pointing fingers claiming someone else is “irresponsible”.

Take the time. Click on the links. Let the good people at Mitsubishi know that people appreciate their support.

Change.org petition:No bleach enemas to “cure” autism in children!

2 Jun

Emily Willingham and Jennifer Byde-Myers have started a petition on Change.org calling for a ban on the “MMS” therapy. This is the so-called therapy that involves making disabled children drink bleach or undergo bleach enemas. This was promoted at this year’s AutismOne convention.

You can read about it below:

Block peddling of bleach enemas as “cure” for autism in children

Greetings,

I just signed the following petition addressed to the US Food and Drug Administration, US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Federal Trade Commission.

Order cease and desist on selling, recommending, or administering Miracle Mineral Supplement, also known as MMS or sodium dichlorite solution (industrial strength bleach), as “curative” for children with autism when used orally, in baths, or in repeatedly administered enemas.

Here is what one autistic child underwent with this “treatment”–A parent writes: “He is nonverbal and fairly low-functioning, so I don’t get any feedback from him as to how he is feeling. Last week, I started him on 1 drop of MMS (bleach solution) then upped the dose to 1 drop, 2x a day this week. After about 4 days at 2 drops/day, he vomited once and had diarrhea all day. I am assuming it is the MMS. His gut tends to be very sensitive to anything I give him.”

A full account of the history of this product is available here: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/bleaching-away-what-ails-you. It recently was featured at an Autism One conference: http://www.autismone.org/

In her Autism One presentation (here: http://www.livestream.com/autismone/video?clipId=pla_a7e0b96e-deb1-4399-9131-d1f6d0a23157), MMS peddler Kerri Rivera references effects such as diarrhea and fever during application. There is no medical indication for this compound, either orally or as a bath or enema, and no indications for its use or efficacy in autism. Among the recommendations for application of this substance in unconsenting, autistic children is the so-called 72-2 protocol, involving application of this bleach compound every 2 hours for 72 hours “every possible weekend.” More information about that is on Rivera’s Website, http://www.autismo2.com/mms.html.

Given the effects that even the people selling it cite–fever, clear discomfort, vomiting, diarrhea–and the use of it in minor children who often are unable to verbalize their experience, we ask that the relevant authorities turn immediate attention to Kerri Rivera, organizers of the Autism One conference where she presented this information, and anyone who is selling or recommending this product for use in children with autism.

Thank you for your time.

[Your name]

ASAN: Urge For the Ban on Aversives in Massachusetts!

18 May

This action alert is from ASAN:

Urge For the Ban on Aversives in Massachusetts!

Tomorrow, May 18th, 2012, Massachusetts State Senator Brian Joyce will be filing two amendments to the Senate Ways & Means Budget currently pending in the Massachusetts State Senate. One of these amendments calls for a complete ban of aversives – also called “aversive therapy” – while the other would restrict their use. If passed, this would ban or limit the use of practices like the contingent electric shock used at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC).

But it takes more than one senator to get an amendment passed. We urge you to contact your Massachusetts State Senator and ask him or her to sign on to the Joyce amendments banning or restricting the use of aversives. But please hurry- they have to have signed on by the noon (12pm EST), May 18th deadline!

You can find your Senator’s phone number or email at http://www.malegislature.gov/People/Senate. Because of the urgent deadline, calling their office will be the most effective way to contact them.

Thank you for your support for the rights and safety of Autistics and other people with disabilities in the great state of Massachusetts.

Nothing About Us, Without Us!

Sincerely,
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
http://autisticadvocacy.org

ASAN’s Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Autism Research Symposium Goes Live

10 Apr

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN) hosted a symposium on the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of Autism Research recently. They are now making it available online. See the message below:

Dear Friends:

This week, the media reported that over $1 billion has been spent over the course of the last decade on autism research funding. During a time of constant budget cuts and increasing fiscal pressures on government, this is an astonishing sum. What have we purchased for this investment? How successful has the autism research agenda been in making the American dream a reality for Autistic people and our families? Has our society discussed the ethical, legal and social consequences of how autism research findings may be used? We think these questions are worth asking, and with your help, we think it is past time to get more people involved in the discussion.

Last December, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network joined with the Harvard Law Project on Disability and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics to hold a symposium on the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI) of Autism Research. Supported by a grant from the Administration on Developmental Disabilities, the ASAN ELSI Symposium served as the launching point for a robust conversation about changing the way our society approaches autism research. From our partnership with federal research funders to get self-advocates on grant review panels to growing attention to ethical issues on topics like prenatal testing, self-determination in service-provision and more, the need to introduce values into our national autism research dialogue remains stronger than ever.

Over the course of the month of April, we will be releasing captioned videos of December’s ELSI Symposium. The first is already available on our YouTube channel. You can help us get the word out by watching it alone or with your friends and colleagues, sharing it on facebook and twitter, and starting to talk about these things in your own community. The time has come for our voices to be heard.

Nothing About Us, Without Us!
Ari Ne’eman
President
Autistic Self Advocacy Network

Los Angeles Times: Discovering Autism

23 Dec

The Los Angeles Times produced a series of articles called “Discovering Autism”. The series is in four parts and represents was researched for years. The articles are:

Autism boom: an epidemic of disease or of discovery?
Autism rates have increased twentyfold in a generation, stirring parents’ deepest fears and prompting a search for answers. But what if the upsurge is not what it appears to be?

Warrior parents fare best in securing autism services
Public spending on children with autism in California varies greatly by race and class. A major reason: Not all families have the means to battle for coveted assistance.

Families cling to hope of autism ‘recovery’
An autism treatment called applied behavior analysis, or ABA, has wide support and has grown into a profitable business. It has its limits, though, and there are gaps in the science.

Autism hidden in plain sight
As more children are diagnosed with autism, researchers are trying to find unrecognized cases of the disorder in adults. The search for the missing millions is just beginning.

The first article brought a great deal of criticism, from many quarters. As you can imagine challenging the way the “autism epidemic” is viewed is not welcomed by those promoting vaccines as a primary cause of autism. This article also brought out at least one commenter who asserted that the rise in autism diagnoses is driven by people seeking social security payments (SSI), which goes to show that readers tend to bring their own preconceptions to what they read.

Interest in the online discussion of the series dropped off dramatically after day one.

Autism boom: an epidemic of disease or of discovery? looked at the rise in autism diagnoses observed in many places. Writer Alan Zarembo points out quite rightly that autism rates vary dramatically by school district in California, as well as state to state.

Such variability of autism rates across geography speak strongly against the idea of a single cause, such as vaccines. Autism Diva wrote about the strong variation by regional center district within California years ago (her piece is not up, but this article from LBRB discusses her article)

The variation by school district and by race/ethnicity was a major factor in helping me see that the vaccine-epidemic of autism did not make sense, back when I first started to read up on autism.

The LA Times quotes Prof. Peter Bearman of Columbia University, who studied the California Department of Developmental Services data closely and showed, amongst other things, that a large autism “cluster” existed in Southern California. The Times notes that similar clusters were found by U.C. Davis Professor Irva Hertz-Picciotto. (I was present when Autism Diva discussed the regional center graph with Prof. Hertz-Picciotto, by the way).

Prof. Bearman also showed that social forces were at work–awareness, if you will–which has aided the increase in autism diagnoses.

In other words, autism is not contagious, but the diagnosis is.

“`Is it real or not?’ is a meaningless question,” Bearman said of the surge in cases. “The sociological processes are as real as the biological processes.”

A diagnostician (neurologist) is quoted in the Times:

Dr. Nancy Niparko, a child neurologist in Beverly Hills, said that whether she identifies a child as autistic can come down to whether she believes it will do any good.

“If it’s going to improve the possibility of getting services that will be helpful, I will give the label,” she said.

“I don’t work for labels. Labels work for me.”

In Warrior parents fare best in securing autism services makes the point that it takes work, hard work, to get the services that a child may need. An autism diagnosis is not a ticket to services, it is a first step. Parents who fight harder and longer tend to get higher levels of services for their children.

The Times points out that within a single district (albeit one of the largest in the U.S., Los Angeles Unified), the fraction of students with 1:1 aides varies by geography and race/ethnicity:

District officials acknowledge that advocacy efforts make a big difference in who gets services, but see things differently than parents on the value of 1:1 aides:

L.A. Unified officials offered a similar explanation for the disparity. As parents successfully lobbied for outside aides, the idea spread, and in certain schools it became standard practice to offer them.

“Parents learned from each other,” said Nancy Franklin, a top special education administrator. “It became a cottage industry in LAUSD.”

The district is trying to break the pattern by persuading parents that its own staff can meet children’s needs in many cases.

“We’re paying lots of money for services that are of questionable value,” said Eileen Skone-Rees, who oversees the district’s contracts with companies that supply one-on-one aides.

In Families cling to hope of autism ‘recovery’, the Times focuses on ABA. Biomedical approaches are not really discussed.

The article talks about ABA from the early work of Ivar Lovaas to the present day, where it is common in some school districts and regional centers. The high costs and the level of research support are discussed along with examples of children who are success stories and those who are not.

In Autism hidden in plain sight, the Times looks at how autism is often missed in adults.

The Times presents an intriguing look at the past in medical records from a child diagnosed by Leo Kanner (whose work coined the term “autism”).

The times provided a number of slide show vignettes of people they interviewed.

I can’t link to them directly, but I’ve watched a few and enjoyed them. Jeane Duquet, autistic adult diagnosed at age 39 (right side, middle). Jesse Castillo, age 11 (bottom right corner)

The author of the series, as well as Catherine Lord were interviewed by NPR:

http://www.npr.org/v2/?i=144022386&m=144022377&t=audiowidth=”400″ height=”446″ />

I would certainly have done some things differently had I written the series. I would have chosen different wording, for example. Yes, the pieces brought out some less than pleasant perspectives. I’ve read a few complaints about the series, from not supporting vaccine causation or biomedical approaches to presenting autism as a costly burden. Ironically, these complaints come from the same people who repeatedly say that “autism costs society $3.5 million per individual”. A big piece of that $3.5M is ABA and if we as a community (or part of the community) are to defend the need for ABA, we have to accept that there is a cost. I believe, and I commented, that the choice of language at times put a negative slant where one was not needed. However, the series put some very good information out, including: 1) the “epidemic” has a large portion which is driven by social factors, with a much smaller part that may be a real change in the number of autistics, 2) services are not handed out on a silver platter. Parents and autistics have to fight for what supports the law says they should get, 3) 1:1 therapies such as ABA may be effective, but they are expensive and the research behind them is still incomplete and 4) adult autistics are out there in greater numbers than is currently reported.

The biggest complaint about the series is that it portrays parents as seeking diagnoses for their kids for some sort of financial gain. Dr. Jay Gordon (a major promoter of the vaccine-epidemic idea) has noted this where Mr. Zarembo has been interviewed (http://www.scpr.org/programs/patt-morrison/2011/12/22/21866/autism-diagnoses-spike-an-epidemic-in-the-making). Mr. Zarembo makes it clear in the interview that this is not his point. That the autism diagnosis “opens the door” and that parents are doing what they should for their children–including fighting hard to obtain appropriate services once the door is opened.

For those complaining that the LA Times series didn’t cover the vaccine-epidemic idea or biomedical approaches to autism: I’d recommend you be thankful. Quite frankly an evidence driven newspaper series on these issues will not go the way you want.

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